[Air-l] February 2004 executive committee report

[Nancy Baym]

February 16, 2004
Report of the a.o.i.r. executive committee
Prepared by Nancy Baym

AoIR Executive Committee
President: Nancy Baym
Vice-President: Matthew Allen
Secretary: Ulla Bunz
Treasurer: Benjamin Bates
Open Seats: Radhika Gajjala and Annette Markham
Appointed Seats: Monica Murero and Randolph Kluver
Student Seat: Leslie Tkach-Kawasaki
Publications Officers: Jeremy Hunsinger and Charlie Breindahl
Past President (ex-officio): Steve Jones
2004 Conference Chair: Kate O'Riordan
Ethics Working Group Chair: Charles Ess
AoIR Annual Chair: Mia Consalvo

1.  Introduction & General (Baym)

This is the place to find out what's going on in 
the association. It's long, it's not always 
thrilling, but it's always the best way for you 
to keep up so please read it! Our executive 
committee discussions are summarized in Ulla 
Bunz's section of the report, 2004 Conference 
Host Kate O'Riordan provides a Sussex overview in 
the conference chair report below, Charles Ess 
keeps us posted on ethics, and Mia Consalvo keeps 
us up to date on the Annual. All this and more! 
Read on...

2.  Executive Officers' Reports

2.1 President (Baym)

2.1.1  First, I apologize for not posting a 
report in the last few months (not that I 
received a lot of inquiries as to its 
whereabouts!). We were in a minor lull through 
the holidays and are now back to multiple ongoing 
threads all day, every day. The main items on our 
agenda have been the 2004 conference in Sussex 
which is shaping up nicely (thanks in no small 
part to the work of Kate O'Riordan and Sheizaf 
Rafaeli), and getting ready to launch some 
initiatives (stay tuned for opportunities to get 
involved!). I've also been appreciating the 
quality (if occassional wackiness) of recent 
air-l discussions, which have reminded me of how 
important aoir is in providing an 
interdisciplinary and international space for 
people from diverse perspectives to discuss 
issues of common concern. Sometimes we talk past 
one another, but I think that more often we learn 
from one another. As always, if you have 
suggestions about how AoIR can improve your life 
as an internet researcher or have skills to offer 
the association, please let me know!

2.2 Vice President (Allen)

2.2.1  [Matt sent in no report, but has been 
actively participating in discussion on exec].

2.3 Secretary (Bunz)

2.3.1 	The exec committee continued to discuss an official proposal for
hosting the AoIR 2005 conference. The proposal from another potential host
was withdrawn. By unanimous vote (11/11) we voted *in favor* of the
proposed host site. The 2005 location will be 
announced in Sussex. We are in dialogue with the 
proposed hosting site about further details. We 
are considering moving to a hired conference 
management team which would change hosting 
procedures. More information will be made 
available once guidelines have been formulated. 
If you are interested in the 2006 or 2007 
conference organization, please get in touch with 
Nancy Baym any time. Also, the exec continued to 
discuss the issue of co-sponsorship and joint 
conferences for future conferences. Final 
conclusion was that overall we would prefer to
continue as the sole association responsible for AoIR conferences
though we are open to scheduling conferences back to back
with related associations so as to facilitate travel and give people the
opportunity to broaden their interests.

-	The exec discussed conference fees and 
membership fees, comparing standards in different 
disciplines and trying to combine conflicting 
goals (i.e., raising conference fees to keep the 
financial situation of the association in shape, 
while hoping to attract researchers from less 
affluent countries). At this point, no official 
change in either membership fees or conference 
fees was decided upon. It is possible that the 
conference fees for AoIR 2004 will be higher than 
in previous years, but we expect accommodations 
to be significantly cheaper, so that total cost 
should be the same or maybe even lower than for 
the Toronto conference. Along the same lines, we 
are considering setting up a support fund for 
graduate students and people from non-OECD 
countries. Conference funding issues in general 
and for Sussex in specific were discussed as well.

-	The exec discussed whether to continue 
with the Couch Award to be awarded during AoIR 
conference and decided in favor.

-	The exec discussed various hotel-sharing 
and cross-booking options for future conferences 
to offer accommodation at cheaper hotels without 
raising association default charges when not 
meeting a minimum requirement of rooms booked at 
the main conference hotel. It appears that two 
different models can be followed in Europe and in 
the US, and the exec is open to testing a new 
model at a future AoIR conference in Europe.

-	The air-qualitativemethods at aoir.org has 
been created. Contact Annette Markham for more 
information.

-	Jeremy Hunsinger prepared the online 
submission system, and members of the exec tested 
it.

-	The exec discussed AoIR's possible 
contributions to ASCUS (http://www.ascus.info/) 
in addition to just putting our logo on their 
site. We support their cause, but have no content 
to offer them at this time.

-	The exec is in the process of discussing 
the charges for what may become two new working 
groups. One will concern journals options and one 
will concern website options. Please watch for 
further information, as we will request input 
from both members and non-members in the near 
future.

-	Along with conference planner Kate 
O’Riordan and program planner Sheizaf Rafaeli, 
decided to push the submission deadline back to 
February 15.

-	Jeremy Hunsinger reported various spam 
problems and access problems, but also reported 
that everything seems to be under control again.


2.4 Treasurer (Bates)

2.4.1 Just finished sending off renewal reminders. Trying to keep up.

2.5 Open Seats (Gajjala, Markham)

2.5.1 Gajjala: nothing much to report - scrambling to meet AOIR deadlines:)

2.5.2 Markham: Contributed to discussions related 
to current and future conferences, circulated the 
conference call for papers as widely as possible, 
focusing on non-academic fields of inquiry, 
continued to generate interest in the qualitative 
methods mailing list, and brainstormed with other 
members of the executive committee about matters 
related to the net presence of AOIR.

2.6 Appointed Seats (Murero, Kluver)

2.6.1 Murero:  I was involved in giving final 
approvals for the keynote speakers' shortlist, 
within the conference committee, and on the basis 
of my previous experience in organizing 
Maastricht's conference have given suggestions to 
organizers about  opportunities of  sponsorships 
for the annual AoIR conference in Sussex.

2.6.2 Kluver:  I have been participating in exec 
discussions thoughtfully, if not loudly! Nothing 
more to report.

2.7 Student Seat (Tkach-Kawaski)

2.7.1 * Drafting brief e-mail report to grad students through
the grad student list (to go out in about two days).
* Participating in discussions regarding the web-site.

2.8 Publications Officers (Hunsinger, Breindahl)

2.8.1 Hunsinger: I've been working peripherally 
on conference matters as necessary. charlie and I 
have been working very hard to manage spam and 
virus's and let me assure you that any spam or 
virus that seems to come from aoir.org most 
likely does not originate from our servers, 
likewise with spam.
other than that, I've been participating in exec 
deliberations and other business.

2.8.2 Breindahl: Jeremy and I have spent lots of 
time fighting worm-generated mail. MIME e-mail is 
no longer posted directly to the list, but held 
in a queue for closer scrutiny. We strongly 
recommend posting in plain text.

Took part in various executive committee discussions as usual.

2.9 Past-President (Jones): I've been working on 
getting bids from conference management agencies 
for the purpose of planning and executing future 
AoIR conferences.

2.10 2004 Conference Chair (Kate O'Riordan)

2.10.1 Internet Research: 5, 2004

Keynote Speakers
We are very pleased to report that Sara Kiesler and Nina Wakefield have
confirmed that they will attend as keynote speakers for IR:5.  We look
forward to their contributions to what promises to be an exciting
conference.

Submissions
We have received over 360 abstracts in response to the call for papers.
The programme chair Professor Sheizaf Rafaeli and a team of reviewers are
currently working on these and we should be able to confirm papers and
develop the programme in the coming months on the basis of this
enthusiastic response.

Registration
Some budget details are still being ironed out, but we hope to have
registration details online before Easter.

Challenges and Help
We are keen to encourage more volunteers to help with any aspect of the
conference planning.  Please contact us if you feel you could contribute.
Volunteers for reviewing and other programme roles can contact the
programme chair.  Practical issues, contributions to the web site and
onsite volunteers can contact the conference chair. Fund raising also
continues to be a significant challenge.

Thanks
Many thanks to all the people who have contributed to the conference so
far; especially those who continue to contribute to the conference
planning list (aoir-meet) and those of you who have volunteered to help
with the reviewing.  Thanks also to the people at the University of
Sussex who've put in so much hard work.  I look forward to continuing to
work with you all as the planning progresses.


2.11  AoIR Ethics Working Group (Charles Ess, Chair)

2.11.1  The AoIR ethics working committee has 
discussed a recent case/study kindly provided by 
two AoIR members.

Several lessons emerged from the case/study and our discussion - two of
which bear mention here.

One, significant problems can be avoided ahead of time if participants in a
multi-disciplinary research project spell out and discuss in detail their
methodological assumptions and ethical practices regarding publication of
research data.  (In the case we examined, two different disciplines involved
in the research project, it turned out, had more or less opposite views on
this point - leading to difficulties _after_ much of the project had been
completed, IRB approval received, etc.)

Two - our discussion further illustrated the differences among us with
regard to what we mean by "case study" (!).  For some of us (included Ess as
a philosopher), a case study can remain relatively general: for others, a
case study is necessarily much more finely detailed.
The problem is that in this instance - as in previous cases brought to the
committee for discussion - the understandable request for more detailed
information put the authors of our case in the unpleasant position of having
to say 'no' to such requests.  For a host of reasons, including issues of
professional courtesy and confidentiality, our colleagues were not able to
provide us with additional information, leaving the committee's discussion
somewhat stalled in mid-course.

The lesson learned: our project of collecting case studies that would help
provide a kind of positive analogue to case law (that might help researchers
develop their proposals and negotiate with their IRBs or equivalent
oversight authorities) will have to be modified.

The good news: we can still solicit from AoIR members more general accounts
of their experiences that focus on "Ethical tips / lessons learned" in
developing research proposals and negotiating with ethical oversight
authorities.

On behalf of the committee - we look forward to receiving these from you!
-- Charles Ess

2.12 AoIR Annual Editor (Mia Consalvo)

2.12.1:
The first volume of the AoIR Annual is in the final stages of camera copy
proofing, with the index now completed (thanks Leslie!) and final errors
corrected. It goes to the printer February 20 for production. The second
volume of the Annual is still in planning-- Matt and Mia are still reading
through submissions- there were over 120 papers to consider, and due to a
large volume of excellent manuscripts, decisions are difficult. We estimate
that we will be notifying everyone by the end of this month (February 28)--
and sorry about that delay.